There are billions of potentially inhabited planets in the Milky Way alone. Here’s how NASA will at last discover and measure them. — Ever since our ancient ancestors first looked up at the stars, one question has given us a ceaseless sense of wonder: who else is out there? Our there around those glittering orbs of light in the sky, we know there are a great variety of planets and moons, including those…

Do you think you know the Solar System? Here’s a fact about each planet that might surprise you when you see it! — Do you truly know our Solar System?

With two different black hole event horizons now directly imaged, we can see that they are, in fact, rings, not disks. But why? — After a 5-year wait from the time the original, critical data was taken, humanity has finally feasted our eyes upon not one, but two black hole direct images. What both of them have revealed is a photon “ring” surrounding an event horizon. Black holes, surrounded by particles of normal matter…

When stars form, they emit energetic radiation that boils gas away. But it can’t stop gravitational collapse from making even newer stars. — Gravity collapses large collections of matter to form new stars, and then the energy emitted from those stars brings star-formation to a grinding halt. At least, that’s the prevailing picture we have of how it should always work. You have to gather enough matter together in one place so that…

If you think you know how an astronomical nova works, buckle up. You’re in for a ride like you never expected. — Stars, although they’re incredibly stable over very long timescales, simply cannot live forever. No matter what their composition, mass, temperature, or other properties may be, every star will eventually run out of the nuclear fuel that powers it. For all but the most massive stars in the Universe, each one…

Earth is the Solar System’s only known inhabited planet. Could Venus, if its phosphine signal is real, be our second world with life? — Of all the places where you can imagine that life might be hiding in this vast, immense Universe, Venus might be one of the last places you’d ever think about looking. As the hottest planet in the Solar System, hotter than even Mercury is in full sunlight, the surface of…

On July 12, 2022, NASA will release the first science images taken with the James Webb Space Telescope. Here’s what to hope for. — In astronomy, we study the Universe by gathering light.

The James Webb Space Telescope is about to begin science operations. Here’s what astronomers are excited about. — It’s now been nearly a full six months since the JWST was launched, and we’re on the cusp of getting our first science data and images back from some 1.5 million kilometers away. There are all sorts of things we’re bound to learn, from discovering the farthest galaxies of…

In all of science, no figures have changed the world more than Einstein and Newton. Will anyone ever be as revolutionary again? — If you ask anyone who the greatest scientist in history was, you’re overwhelmingly likely to come away with two names: Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton. Newton’s greatest achievements were his theories of mechanics ⁠ — describing the laws of motion for physical objects ⁠ — and of universal gravitation. For…